Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Yeah.” Archer grins. It’s a smile that isn’t a lie, that doesn’t harbor secrets. How can he do that? How can he be that? And why can’t I?
He leans in and takes my mouth. It’s different from the last kiss, maybe because it’s Archer kissing me this time or because he told me he wants me. Maybe it’s those two words he said that I shouldn’t fucking want him to say again.
Archer’s tongue flicks at my lips, then sneaks into my mouth, and tasting him, smelling his cedary scent feels like it’s building a wall to try and block out all the noise and memories that plague me every second of every day.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, holding, squeezing with just enough pressure to feel strangely possessive and comforting at the same time. Archer deepens the kiss, explores my mouth with his tongue, like there’s not one millimeter he wants to leave untraveled, untasted, like he really does want me the way he says he does. It’s sex, of course. I’m not stupid enough to see it as anything more than that, but in this moment, I don’t feel like the East who screws everything up. The East who makes people’s lives harder. With him, right now, I’m just a man making another man feel good.
My skin prickles with need, cock throbbing as it fills and hardens. When he pulls back, the familiar burst of panic shoots through me, wanting more, not wanting this to stop, needing to be close, to feel his skin against mine, bodies pressed together in a way I only allow myself during sex, but with Archer it’s intensified. Probably because he’s seen me in moments no one else has. Sometimes it feels like he can see inside me, and that scares me because I don’t want him to dislike what he finds. I push forward again, wanting to kiss him, to have this night before he realizes again this is a bad idea.
I try to climb onto his lap, to straddle him on the porch the way I’d done in his living room. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.
“I’m not going anywhere. Why don’t we take this into the house? Show me how good you can be for me, East.”
I nearly growl in response. Want to do exactly as he says and try to be good.
I’ve never fucked someone in my house before. Their place, bars, cars, the woods, a hundred other places except my house, but then, I’ve also never done this with someone I know either.
I stand up. Don’t say anything to him because I don’t know what I would say, but I look at him, try to tell him to come with me, and Archer stands too.
Pretty Girl and Casanova are cuddling on the couch. I’d thought we could go there, but I don’t want to move them.
So I head straight for the stairs, hope he follows me up without a word. When I hear Archer’s steps behind me, I breathe out a sigh of relief. As soon as he gets to my room, I wonder why I didn’t take him to the spare, but I distract myself by taking off my shoes. Archer does the same, but when I go for my shirt, he says, “Be a good boy and let me do that.”
My cock twitches. “Jesus, why do you keep saying that?”
“Do you want me to stop?”
We both know I don’t.
“If you’re gonna take my clothes off, you should hurry and do it.”
He chuckles when I expect him to get annoyed. Nothing seems to bother him. My antics don’t do their job in pushing him away.
Archer tugs at my tee, pulling it over my head and dropping it to the floor. “You’re so fucking sexy…look at all this ink.” He leans in, his tongue lashing over my pec. My knees weaken in a way I would be embarrassed about if I wasn’t so turned on.
My whole chest and arms are covered in black ink, Archer touching each of them, kissing them, caressing them, until he moves to my back, and I hold my breath. There’s only one tattoo there, on my shoulder—a butterfly.
My eyes fall closed, waiting for him to mention it, waiting for him to ask why it’s the only thing there, why a butterfly.
“Look at it, East. Isn’t it pretty?” The memory comes unbidden, a young Ella standing in front of me, looking at the butterfly that had landed on her shoulder. “We should collect butterflies.”
“Okay,” I tell her. That’s how we work. If one of us likes something, the other does too.
“Hey…where did you go?” Archer asks, and I have no idea how or why that happened. He runs his fingers through my hair, the corners of his brown eyes creased in concern.
“Fuck me,” I rush out, smashing our mouths together. My fingers go for his jeans—unbuttoning, unzipping, tugging them down. I need to feel…I don’t know… I’m always so damn empty, and I want to feel full, want to feel whole, want pleasure to take the place of all my pain.